[USS Alaska]

Why does the woman that shot at but missed Ford remain in prison while the guy that actually shot Reagan and Brady get weekend home visits?

[Valpal1]

That's a good question.

[SpringheelJack]

Why does the woman that shot at but missed Ford remain in prison while the guy that actually shot Reagan and Brady get weekend home visits?

25 years ago Jimmy Carter pardoned a Puerto Rican who'd tried to kill Harry Truman and succeeded in killing a police officer.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Great question, his family had money to buy a lawyer(liar) to say he was crazy.

---

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.
- "Unburlesquable Things," The Galaxy Magazine, July 1870
MARK TWAIN

[Obadiah]

Because John Hinckley, who shot Reagan, was determined by the court to be insane. Apparently, he has recovered enough to have weekend visits. (No word yet from Jodie Foster as to whether the will now date or not.)

[PzLdr]

He was found " 'Not Guilty' by reason of mental disease or defect". They were convicted of the crimes they were charged with.

[ReignOfError]

Why does the woman that shot at but missed Ford remain in prison while the guy that actually shot Reagan and Brady get weekend home visits?

Moore was convicted. Hinckley was acquitted. It's really not all that complicated.